Sick days

[Belladog1]

Just wondering how many days sick you generally have per year. I'm not talking serious ailments but coughs/colds/stomach issues etc ....

I am very lucky and I'm rarely ill. I can't remember the last time I got a cold and i don't think I've taken a sick day in years. I'd have to feel really rubbish before I'd consider not going to work.

But my colleagues are very different. One lady is off a lot, at least fortnightly with headaches or a cold. She apparently takes to her bed and gets looked after by her husband. I've noticed her son takes lots of time off too for ailments and she often gets calls from the school for him to be collected as he has tummy ache. I can't help but wonder if her sickness days and staying home look great to her son who gets a day home with one mention of a poorly stomach.?

My boss often phones me to say he's woken up feeling grotty and is taking a day to stay under the duvet.

I remember as a kid trying to convince my mum i was sick. She would sit on the bed, pull a silly face and if I giggled she'd say 'I think you're well enough to go to school', and off I'd go. But, even today, as a middle aged woman, I still feel guilty, almost like I'm lying, if I need a day off sick.

Interesting how you accuse us of shaming your SIL, but you don't care that you're shaming me and all the other people who have disagreed with you on this thread for going to work when we literally can't afford not to. Double standards some to mind....
Perhaps you could use what happened to your family to help shame the government into insisting that companies have to pay sick pay!

I'm very happy to shame those who go into work knowingly with an infectious illness.

@QuietComet
why are you being so rude?
People are answering you politely and not being unpleasant.

Because this thread and the attitudes on it has made me really, really angry.

I normally try to be calm and polite, but that's gone out of the window here, and I don't care.

...but not you're not happy to shame those who knowingly took flu to a vulnerable family member. Hmmm

To be honest, by the time you are feeling sick, you've already infected others

It could have come from anywhere

We always try and find someone to blame when we are angry and upset

I've literally shared a bed with someone with covid and not caught it. Several times.

I completely get this….I wouldn’t lose money for a cold either….I’m nhs so get good sick pay and also have flexi working and option of working at home ….but in your shoes I would do the same

and t hey are more replaceable if they take too much time off sick

people cant win
come in and you should be ashamed
dont come in, same, you should be ashamed!

Just had two days off with a rotten cold, before that 2021. I’m very lucky I don’t get ill generally.

Some of the responses on here are crazy. Going into work with flu, 40 degree temperature, tonsillitis etc because apparently it’s ’just a sniffle’ . Why risk your health - you only get one body.

I do really think how often you get ill depends where you work. If you are WFH, or in an office and not commuting on public transport, you are much less likely to pick up viruses. But any public facing role or commuting on a crowded train of course you are more likely to pick things up. Same as having school age children.

Also I think whether you take time off or can just ‘carry on’ depends on the type of job. A lot of the posters on here who proudly state they have had no days off sick also say ‘if I am feeling ill I just WFH’. In my job I am talking to people all day long, I can’t just wrap myself in a blanket and stare at a screen and maybe pop off for a little nap when the drugs wear off.

Some people do take the mickey with days off for everything, but it doesn’t mean everyone else has to be a martyr.

Not in this office if OP is correct and a colleague is taking as much time off as they are. Going into work while ill is not a badge of honour and infecting everyone else.

Oh, I agree. My point is that punitive sickness policies mean that people come in even when it would be in the interests of the team for them not to.

Where I work (private sector) we don't get paid at all for the first 3 days and then only SSP. As a consequence, there is very little 'incentive' to ring in sick unless you really need to. I've been there 3 years and haven't had any days off sick. Frankly, perhaps I should have been off last year when I had some hideous virus, but at the time I was the only one working in the family and just couldn't afford to lose the pay.
On the other end of the scale, where my OH used to work, they got full pay for 6 months and then half pay for a further 6 months - so many of his colleagues would just take protracted time off with stress etc.

There is nothing worse than someone coming in and spreading their germs. Very selfish. In some countries it is considered illegal.